By Peter Foster, National Post
Harper right to kill ‘irresponsible’ bill that would have erased legions of jobs.
Opposition MPs and warmist NGOs this week responded with outrage that the Harper government should have dared to use the Senate - an unelected body that the Conservatives claim they want to reform - to kill the Climate Change Accountability Act.
Mr. Harper, however, noted that there was an issue here of somewhat greater importance than procedural nicety or political consistency: the fate of the Canadian economy. He rightly dubbed Bill C-311 a piece of “completely irresponsible legislation” that set suicidal “targets” that would have destroyed hundreds of thousands if not millions of jobs.
Ironic, meanwhile, that radical environmentalists who assert that we may have to ditch democracy, and even freedom, in order to save the world are now so keen that democratic procedures should be followed. In fact, the Harper government broke no parliamentary rules, although there was much finger pointing about how Bill C-311 actually came to a vote. Some suggested that the Senate Liberals had shot themselves footwise by accidentally precipitating the fatal head count. But if this was a matter of Stephen Harper outfoxing his opponents, we should all be grateful. At least, those of us do not have an economic death wish should be grateful.
Critics claim that Mr. Harper has, yet again, deviously stalled climate action. You bet he has! But why would one want him to promote action that would have no impact, apart from destroying jobs?
Mr. Harper has always clearly grasped - apparently unlike the majority of his international counterparts - that the greatest threat facing humanity is not climate change, but climate-change policy. Bill C-311 was a perfect example. Opposition parties, in thrall to radical green groups or sheer hypocrisy, were supporting a piece of draconian legislation that would not have had one raindrop’s worth of perceptible effect on the global climate. Nor would it have in any way influenced the way other countries are attempting to writhe away from this issue.
The NDP-sponsored private member’s bill would have required the federal government to set targets to bring industrial greenhouse gas emissions to 25% below 1990 levels by 2020, and 80% below 1990 levels by 2050. Without so-far unimagined developments in energy technology, this would have required an unprecedented curbing of industrial activity and jobs.
Critics claim that Canada now faces the embarrassment of turning up at the next climate summit, at Cancun in just over a week’s time, “empty-handed.” But the Kyoto process is deader than Monty Python’s Norwegian blue parrot. It fell off its perch at Copenhagen.
Anti-Harper carpers niggle that three years ago Mr. Harper declared that climate change was the “greatest problem facing humanity.” Good grief, could that have been mere political expediency, based on the necessity of pacifying a needlessly alarmed electorate? Did he not really mean it? You’ll be telling us next that he really favoured that BHP takeover of Potash!
Before he was forced to talk the minority talk, Mr. Harper described climate change as a “socialist plot.” Intriguingly, this fact is now openly acknowledged. This week, German IPCC official Ottmar Edenhofer said in an interview: “[O]ne must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy....One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy any more.”
The Conservatives have thus handled this issue brilliantly (although we should hardly be happy that they have committed hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to climate boondoggles and to funding alarmism, in particular in promising to fork money over to the congenitally incompetent UN). They have maintained that any emissions legislation has to dovetail with that of the U.S. The fact that it would be politically stupid and economically destructive for Canada to “go it alone” was confirmed this week by none other than the U.S. ambassador to Canada, David Jacobson. He acknowledged in a speech at McGill University that: “The practical reality is that in Canada you can’t have a system of carbon pricing that is different from the one in the United States.… The negative effects on trade, on business and on environmental stewardship, in one country or the other, would be very significant.”
Fortunately, the U.S. cap-and-tax thrust was moribund even before the mid-term elections.
The bottom line is that the Conservatives have worked consistently to minimize the damage to the Canadian economy from the all-but-collapsed climate-change juggernaut, and have succeeded admirably. Public concern has - despite flagrantly rigged opinion polls - subsided in the wake both of more immediate economic issues and the very valid doubts over “the science” raised by Climategate and Glaciergate, and by the review of the IPCC undertaken by the InterAcademy Council - the representative body of national science academies. That review acknowledged that the whole IPCC process needs to be reformed.
No matter what the state of the science, however, anybody who supports unilateral action such as Bill C-311 could only be an economic masochist or a political numbskull. To reiterate: the prospect of international agreement to slash emissions has collapsed; any measures to hobble Canada unilaterally would thus be both economically suicidal and climatologically pointless.
Mr. Harper is to be congratulated. The measure of his success will be the volume of “dinosaur” or “fossil” awards given to Canada at Cancun. Canadian representatives should accept them with pride. See post here.
The Scientific Alliance
Many readers will already have been aware of this evolution in terminology. Having already been re-educated to talk about ‘climate change’ rather than ‘global warming’, we are now increasingly hearing the term ‘global climate disruption’. In practice, ‘climate change’ is likely to remain the term in general use, but it is interesting to consider the motivation for these changes.
Since many scientists in the 1970s had been concerned at the prospect of global cooling (and rightly so, as the consequences of a transition to another Ice Age would be pretty serious), it was logical to talk instead of global warming as average temperatures began to creep up following a sudden jump in the mid-70s. The concept of changes wrought by an overall warmer climate was a simple one to grasp.
However, what became clear as climate scientists built their models and looked in more detail at what a warming world might mean was that there would be differences in the regional patterns of change and that temperatures would not simply be consistently higher. Although there was a consensus building in the scientific establishment that increasing carbon dioxide concentration would be the major driver of higher average temperatures, it was also clear that the global climate is highly complex and also subject to other influences.
Global warming became too black and white a concept to fit with the vagaries of weather systems and quickly grew to be the butt of jokes when the weather was unseasonably cold (ironically, there were early snowfalls on the day that the UK Climate Change Act was passed). ‘Climate change’ then became the preferred term, encompassing pretty much anything which might be considered ‘unnatural’. But this was also open to criticism; after all, is climate not intrinsically variable? Hence the recent enthusiasm for ‘global climate disruption’, which nicely encapsulates the concept of unwanted and unnatural change.
Not that a change of name means anything as far as the average lay person is concerned. There is an apparent loss of faith among the general public, with increasing doubts about the seriousness of the issue appearing in consumer surveys. Given the lack of warming trend so far this century, this is hardly surprising. This does not, of course, prove that the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis is wrong, but there has been no additional supporting evidence for the idea for quite some time.
In these circumstances, and faced by severe economic problems, it is hardly surprising that politicians are not falling over themselves to take radical (and expensive) action to reduce fossil fuel use, despite the fine words and the regular setting of unrealistic targets to be met after most of them have left office. But there is more enthusiasm in the business world, where companies are embracing the global climate disruption creed for a whole raft of reasons.
In many cases, this is merely the latest manifestation of the Corporate Social Responsibility agenda: make the company a good corporate citizen and consumers will show their appreciation by buying more of your products (or not, as the case may be). An extension of that is simply to get campaigners off their backs. Businesses want a quiet life and shy away from controversy if at all possible, so that they can get on with the business of making a profit undisturbed (and, for the record, I see nothing wrong in that at all).
A lot of the climate change mitigation agenda also helps with what is good for companies in any case: saving energy and becoming more efficient. If this can be done, then not only does the bottom line improve, but the business gets brownie points for being green. But in the financial services sector, climate change is a business opportunity of a different ilk. As the saying goes, every cloud has a silver lining. Understandably, major insurers have been concerned about potential losses from the projected (although not yet apparent) increase in extreme weather events and have used this to raise premiums. Banks have seen the profit potential of carbon trading, although the demise of the Chicago exchange has been an obvious recent disappointment.
Given that their profitability may depend on it, some financial institutions have actually become advocates for the received wisdom on climate change. In September, Deutsche Bank subsidiary DB Climate Change Advisors published a white paper called Climate Change: Addressing the Major Skeptic Arguments. DB used a team of researchers from Columbia University to address a range of issues from the lack of a rising trend in temperatures since 1998 through consideration of the Medieval Warm Period and the missing tropospheric hot spot to the natural adaptability of human societies.
In each case, the answers from the researchers are pretty dismissive of sceptical views. Ross McKitrick sent a ‘Response to Misinformation from Deutsche Bank’ and got the authors to make some minor changes to wording, but only as an appendix; the original report still appears in its entirety.
As for the response to specific criticisms, take this example:
“Claim: The greenhouse gas signature is missing. Global observations are consistent with the model-based prediction of GHG-induced cooling in the stratosphere and warming of the surface and throughout the troposphere. Furthermore, new measurements in the tropics suggest greater warming in the upper troposphere than at the surface, as predicted by the models.” (emphasis added).
Perhaps the situation is not black and white, but to use terms such as ‘consistent with’ and ‘suggest’ is hardly likely to increase confidence in what is a very basic part of the enhanced greenhouse effect hypothesis.
One of the most misleading is this:
Claim: Climate sensitivity is overestimated in current climate models. Quantifying climate sensitivity, or the change in the global mean temperature in response to doubling CO2 is extremely complex because of the unknown rate and magnitude of feedbacks, such as changes in vegetation or ice cover. Attempts to identify negative feedback processes, which would counter the warming due to GHGs, have not been borne out by observations. Sensitivity values below 2.5C cannot explain the observed climate changes of the past.”
What this (and other arguments in the white paper) singularly fails to address is the fact that the dominant feedback is assumed to be a higher average atmospheric water vapour level, that the (probably significantly negative) effect of clouds is not properly allowed for and that credible mechanisms for a higher level of solar influence are ignored.
While the Royal Society and others are toning down their language and acknowledging major uncertainties, DB seems to be intent on hardening its advice to clients. Conceivably, one of the unexpected effects of the climate change saga will be a longer term hangover in politics and finance, even if the scientific monolith crumbles. In the meantime, semantic changes are unlikely to reverse the trend towards scepticism among the public.
By Ben Geman
A Michigan Republican seeking to chair the House Energy and Commerce Committee is pressing White House energy czar Carol Browner for information about controversial changes her office made to a May Interior Department report on offshore drilling safety.
In a letter to Browner Monday, Rep. Fred Upton asked about recent findings by Interior’s inspector general, who concluded that the White House edits left the impression that outside experts consulted on the report had endorsed a six-month ban on deepwater drilling.
They hadn’t. And now Upton - who had already signaled that Browner is in his crosshairs - wants to know more about the rationale for the edits.
Interior Department officials are emphasizing the inspector general’s conclusion that they did not intentionally seek to mislead.
Upton’s letter asks whether the changes “were made to bolster the case for the moratorium” that Interior imposed in late May and lifted last month.
It states: “Was it the intention of you or your staff to misleadingly suggest that the Report’s Executive Summary had been peer reviewed by experts, when that was not actually the case?”
The letter also asks about “what prompted these edits and under whose direction were they made,” and seeks “all written documentation concerning these changes and their authorization.”
Upton’s letter comes as he’s seeking colleagues’ support to chair the powerful Energy and Commerce panel when Republicans assume control of the House next year.
Upton is the latest Republican to question the White House over the changes to the offshore drilling report, which contained safety recommendations and called for the drilling freeze. Three Senate Republicans are also seeking a hearing on the inspector general’s findings.
Many Republicans and Gulf Coast lawmakers from both parties called the drilling ban economically harmful to the region and too broad, while Interior officials said it was needed to ensure safety in the wake of the catastrophic BP oil spill. See more here.
By Dennis Jensen, Quadrant Doomed Planet
At an assemblage of physicists at the British Association in 1900, one of the 19th Century’s most influential physicists and mathematicians, Lord William Thomson Kelvin said, “There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement.”
This statement appears myopic today and would certainly be lambasted by the likes of Einstein, Schrodinger and Hawking.
Arguments by the Gillard government that the science of climate change is “settled” and “the debate is over” are not dissimilar and will leave future generations in no doubt Labor is using flawed science to drive this tax grab.
Science is all about asking the right questions. If we went back 1000 years we could answer every scientific question someone might have, based on knowledge of the day. However, follow-up questions would lead to a point where we would not yet have discovered definitive answers. Such is the nature of science. Asking the wrong question or one with the presumption of a result fails to respect scientific practice and leads to answers that history will judge as misguided and unscientific.
The Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change has been asked the wrong question. Its mission statement reads in part,
The role of the IPCC is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change.
The IPCC has presumed anthropogenic factors as the cause of climate change.
A carbon tax is held by the Gillard government as the definitive climate change cure. But this answer comes from questions based on science that is contentious and literature that is outdated.
Independent Scientists have identified flaws in the computer models that form the basis for the IPCC’s 2007 global warming predictions. IPCC vice chairman, Professor Jean-Pascal van Ypersele has conceded there “probably would be mistakes” in a larger report scheduled for 2013-14. The Royal Society states, “There is little confidence in specific projections of future regional climate change, except at continental scales.” The French Academy of Sciences as well says the jury is still out regarding the indirect effects of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases produced by human activity.
Bryan Leyland, spokesman for the New Zealand Climate Science Education Trust said when referring to a High Court case against the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research and its national climate data,
Many scientists believe that, although the earth has been in a natural warming phase for the past 150 years, it has not heated as much as Government archives claim. The precise trend figure is extremely important, as it forms the sole basis of the claim that human activities are the dominant cause of the warming.
The Federal Government must review its position along with the climate scientists of the world. If it continues down the path of carbon tax, history will judge this solution as unscientific and financially unviable.
An assessment of some of the history of physics demonstrates how dangerous it can be to assume that you have all the answers. In the late 17th century probably the greatest physicist- mathematician of all time, Isaac Newton, derived laws for motion and gravitation. These laws were accepted as the definitive solution for a period of two centuries and the term ‘laws’ was applied to his work rather than ‘theories’. This was despite some exceptions such as the orbit of Mercury that could not be explained using these laws.
Einstein, with his Special and General Theories of Relativity provided a far more complete understanding of mechanics and gravitation but Relativity is still called a ‘theory’. It was realised that Newton’s Laws in fact represented a special case of more generalised theories. When Einstein won the Nobel Prize for Physics, it was not for Relativity, a theory that overturned centuries of ‘accepted fact’. Rather it was for the Photoelectric Effect, a far less confronting discovery for the scientific establishment.
If you had asked astrophysicists only 20 years ago whether the rate of expansion of the universe was speeding up or slowing down, they would have said slowing down. Imagine the surprise when it was discovered that the rate of expansion was increasing. This overturned decades of fundamental forces understanding; gravitation, electromagnetic, nuclear strong and nuclear weak forces. To attempt to explain this, we now have the concept of ‘dark energy’ to accompany ‘dark matter’, both of which were unknown 40 years ago.
The fact is in terms of complexity, mechanics, gravitation and astrophysics have nothing on the dynamics of the climate system.
So why are we so comfortable with “the science is settled” argument?
Why do journalists such as Jon Faine see themselves and the “consensus science” as so omnipotent that they refuse to engage with sceptics or countenance scepticism?
When ‘accepted science’ has massive implications for the welfare of a nation, there needs to be a very thorough audit of the science.
This is why I am calling for a Royal Commission into the science of climate change and the roles played by the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology.
Australia’s climate change policies must be based on our best understanding of the latest scientific research coupled with assessment of the relevant economics impacts.
As The International Climate Science Coalition notes:
Attempts by governments to legislate costly regulations on industry and individual citizens to encourage CO2 reduction will slow development while having no appreciable impact on the future trajectory of global climate change.
Such policies will markedly diminish future prosperity and so reduce the ability of societies to adapt to inevitable climate change, thereby increasing, not decreasing human suffering.
A Royal Commission into the science of climate change will allow an honest public debate, free of emotion, based on the evidence.
History demonstrates the science is not “settled” and never will be. Only a Royal Commission into the science of climate change will provide the most climate effective and cost effective solutions in this debate.
Dr. Dennis Jensen is the Federal Member for Tangney
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America, Canada, Europe, India, China, .... where’s Australia?
Dropping his Cap-n-Trade legislation, President Obama recently capitulated to the will of the American people.
Canada’s Upper House has just killed Canada’s Climate Change bill. European climate shenanigans are in disarray. Unemployment soars under carbon trading and mandated expensive renewable energy. Subsidies are being withdrawn, leaving European industry vulnerable to Asian competitors.
China and India confirm they won’t nonsensically tax Nature’s climate. Indians say they won’t participate in future UN climate gabfests. The coming Circus Cancun will be their last.
Why is the climate circus withering and dying? In the attached document for lay people and politicians entitled “Is the Western Climate Establishment Corrupt?”, Aussie scientist David Evans answers concisely and pictorially.
Bogged in the mire of self-inflicted reversals and beleaguered by serial breaches of promises, the ALP is trapped between their Greens coalition partner and yet another backflip. Lacking the character to address the facts and admit her errors, the Prime Minister desperately clings to another assault on Aussie wallets.
Ignorant and irresponsible politicians have already wasted billions of taxpayer money and caused emotional distress fomenting unfounded fear and guilt. Sceptics were ridiculed by the herd of intoxicated academics, journalists and politicians. Now we’re laughing with Nature. Despite decades of ignorant trumpeting by global-taxing politicians arrogantly and falsely claiming control over our planet’s climate and over Nature, global atmospheric cooling shows who remains in charge.
As politicians duck, who has the integrity and guts to hold the UN IPCC and government accountable by demanding a Royal Commission?
Malcolm Roberts
BE (Hons), MBA (Chicago)
Fellow AICD, MAIM, MAusIMM, MAME (USA), MIMM (UK), Fellow ASQ (USA, Aust)
By Viv Forbes, Carbon Sense Coalition
For those who think that wind farms are green and environmentally friendly have a look at this 6-minute video about wind turbine construction here.
Here are a few facts on wind power sent to us by David Bellamy in UK:
Wind farms generate cheap (or even free!) electricity
This is not true. The electricity generated by wind turbines is much more costly than that from conventional power stations, because the price has to include enough to cover the subsidies paid to the wind farm companies for operating them. UK electricity prices have already gone up, and are predicted to go up by a further third over the next decade, to pay for our commitment to renewables.
Wind power is reliable because the wind is always blowing somewhere
That is not the case. Meteorologists can list many periods, often in very cold winter weather, when there is so little wind that the contribution to the grid is negligible. In addition, wind turbines only start generating when the wind is blowing at about 10mph, and have to be turned off for safety reasons when wind speeds reach about 55mph. In fact, on average, for about 110 days a year any individual turbine may generate no electricity at all. That means a back-up supply always has to be available - which is why no countries have been able to shut down their conventional power stations.
Wind farms provide employment
This is hardly true. There may be a small number of construction jobs on offer while the access roads to the site are being built but the on-site work to erect the actual turbines is a specialist job that will only be carried out by the contractor. Once the turbines are up, wind farms are operated remotely, sometimes even from abroad, so no ongoing local jobs are likely.
Wind farms only last for 25 years and are then removed
The key components of the turbines, namely the gears, normally last only about 10 to 12 years before they need replacing. Very few wind farms are as much as 25 years old yet - but we know of several cases where the operators have taken the opportunity to rebuild much sooner than that, erecting larger turbines than originally installed. So it is safer to assume that a wind farm, once built, will effectively be a permanent feature of the landscape.
Wind farms are not noisy
Wrong. There are plenty of examples where residents have suffered ill health effects caused by both noise (and on occasion shadow-flicker) when living too close to turbines. Some people, including some farmers, have even been forced out of their homes as a result. There is no legal setback distance from homes in the UK, though the Scottish Executive recommends 2kms as a desirable minimum.
Wind farms generate hardly any complaints
A report by the University of Salford in 2006 showed that about 20% of wind farms had already generated formal complaints. That work is currently being updated, as there are many more wind farms today than in 2006 and their technology has allegedly improved. The current work shows that the 20% level of complaints, however, remains steady.
Wind farms don’t cause a fall in house prices
Wind farm developers make this claim but there are certainly cases where people have difficulty in selling their homes once turbines are present. In one case, the vendors were legally obliged to compensate the purchasers by 20% of the house value, plus interest, for selling without having disclosed the presence of a wind farm proposal. The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors surveyed house values near wind farms and found that about 60% had declined by amounts varying between 5% and 50%.
Wind farms have no damaging effect on tourism
The earliest wind farms had such novelty value that they were almost tourist attractions in themselves - but even the developers admit that this no longer applies. One caravan site near Harrogate, for example, has seen a drastic drop in income since four turbines were erected nearby. The Campaign for the Protection of Rural England, has recently released a ‘Tranquillity Map’ of the UK because it is clear that tourists are increasingly looking for peace and quiet when they go away from home.
Wind turbines pose no danger to birds and bats
Not true. Small birds can often avoid rotating blades at short notice (though remember that the tip of a turbine blade is moving at about 200mph) but larger birds such as eagles have much more trouble in diverting to avoid them. Birds that fly around at dusk or during the night are far more at risk than daytime birds. Bats are affected in a different way: They are seldom hit by the blades but they can suffer what is known as ‘barotrauma’ where the change in pressure near the blade tip kills them by damaging their lungs.
Wind farms are a safe form of technology
On the whole this is true (though there may be adverse health effects as noted above). Accidents can happen, however; there have been some examples in Britain of blades collapsing or flying off, and one or two cases of turbine hubs catching fire. A different concern is ‘ice throw’ which happens when ice forms on the blades, usually overnight, and may be flung off in chunks when conditions warm up. This may be a particular concern for farmers with livestock.
Lines of pylons are needed to take the power away from the site
This is not true. Typically, the cables are laid underground from the turbines within the wind farm site and are then linked to overhead lines on wooden poles to connect with the Grid. One worrying aspect, though, is that the developer of a wind farm does not have to seek planning permission for connection, or even to indicate what the proposed route for connection will be, because that is a matter for the Regional Electricity Supplier to address. Permission to the RES is more or less automatic.
Wind farms reduce CO2
Wind farms contribute very marginally to reducing CO2 mainly because an alternative power source has to be kept running at all times for the periods when the wind stops blowing. If we were to rely entirely on wind, we would need to learn to live with a very uncertain and intermittent electricity supply!
Well at least wind farms are better than nuclear power stations
Maybe. It would take about 6000 wind turbines, spread over perhaps 40 square miles to produce as much electricity as the one coal-fired power station at Ferrybridge, or nearly 3000 turbines, spread over 20 square miles, to match one of the two nuclear reactors at Hartlepool. But in both cases the power stations would still be needed as back-up for the 110 days when all those wind turbines would produce no electricity at all.
Finally, some Good News:
The price of carbon credits on the Chicago Carbon Exchange has collapsed to 5 cents a ton and the exchange has decided to cease trading.
Scientific Alliance
It is impossible to predict how the current obsession with climate change will be seen in a hundred years’ time, but it arguably remains the defining issue of the early 21st Century. Despite the acres of newsprint and years of airtime devoted to the issue, the debate is notable for its sterility over recent years. Sceptics have been vilified by those representing the scientific and political orthodoxy and some have given back as good as they got. But the real betes noires of the establishment are the handful of their colleagues who dissent in any way. They are seen as traitors and are treated accordingly.
One such is Judith Curry of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Institute of Technology. She adheres to the mainstream view that climate change is at present primarily caused by burning fossil fuels and that the consequences are potentially very damaging. However, she has also tried to engage with sceptics, rather than dismissing all criticism and attacking the messenger. In particular, she has been criticised by colleagues for inviting prominent sceptics such as Steve McIntyre to her Institute. She sees this as a legitimate way to engage and win the argument; critics say this gives sceptics undue credibility.
Dr Curry now has her own blog (Climate Etc. at judithcurry.com). On this, she has recently posted Reversing the direction of the positive feedback loop and a follow-up piece. The concept of positive feedback is, of course, the basis for the entire edifice of current climate policy: the IPCC, the EU’s 2020 objectives, the lot. There is little concern about serious adverse effects from higher levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide unless the principle of positive feedback created by increased water vapour is invoked. It is this which leads to the headline figures of average temperatures rising 6C or more as CO2 levels rise. In this context, to use the term in relation to climate policy and politics, as Dr Curry does, is guaranteed to raise a few hackles.
For someone who thinks the mainstream view of the science is broadly right, she is remarkably open-minded and honest about the problems with the current situation. Indeed, she acts as all scientists should, but so few actually do.
Take this quote, for example:
“There has been a particularly toxic positive feedback loop between climate science and policy and politics, whose direction has arguably been reversed as result of Climategate. The scientists provided the initial impulse for this feedback loop back in the 1970’s and 1980’s. The enviro advocacy groups quickly saw the possibilities and ran with it, with the scientists’ blessing. The enviro advocacy groups saw the climate change issue as an opportunity to enlist scientific support for their preferred energy policy solution.”
She then develops the argument about the nature of the IPCC and policymaking. The conclusion of the first IPCC assessment report, in 1992, was “The size of this warming is broadly consistent with predictions of climate models, but it is also of the same magnitude as natural climate variability. . . The unequivocal detection of the enhanced greenhouse effect from observations is not likely for a decade or more.”
Her take on this is “Nevertheless, the policy cart was put before the scientific horse, justified by the precautionary principle. Once the UNFCCC treaty was a done deal, the IPCC and its scientific conclusions were set on a track to become a self fulfilling prophecy. . . at the heart of the IPCC is a cadre of scientists whose careers have been made by the IPCC. These scientists have used the IPCC to jump the normal meritocracy process by which scientists achieve influence over the politics of science and policy. Not only has this brought some relatively unknown, inexperienced and possibly dubious people into positions of influence, but these people become vested in protecting the IPCC, which has become central to their own career and legitimizes playing power politics with their expertise. . . When I refer to the IPCC dogma, it is the religious importance that the IPCC holds for this cadre of scientists; they will tolerate no dissent, and seek to trample and discredit anyone who challenges the IPCC.”
Coming from someone who has been regarded as one of the climate change establishment, this is pretty damning stuff. Those who see themselves as the object of Dr Curry’s criticism have not been slow to respond. According to her blog, suggestions for why her behaviour has been so treacherous include:
I been duped by big oil and/or right wing think tanks
I have opened my mind so wide to skeptics that my brains have fallen out
I’m in the pay of big oil or right wing think tanks
I’m being blackmailed
I have become either physically or mentally disabled
To accuse an honest, open-minded colleague of such things speaks of something seriously amiss in the scientific world. But for those who are committed to the cause, this kind of questioning is beyond the pale. It places researchers such as Dr Curry in league with ‘Big Oil’ which, in the narrative favoured by many activists, orchestrates or funds the campaign to call the orthodoxy into question.
For example, Donald Brown, Associate Professor of Environmental Ethics, Science and Law, has recently posted on the Penn State Climate Ethics site a piece entitled A New Kind of Crime Against Humanity?: The Fossil Fuel Industry’s Disinformation Campaign on Climate Change. In it, he says, for example “Although it may be reasonable to be somewhat skeptical about climate change models, some corporate sponsored participants in the climate change disinformation campaign have been spreading deeply misleading distortions about the science of climate change. These untruths are not based upon reasonable skepticism but outright falsification and distortions of climate change science.”
This is, unfortunately, not an uncommon view in some circles. One of Dr Brown’s colleagues at Penn State is Michael Mann, now director of the Earth System Science Center but best known for the controversial ‘hockey stick’ graph of 20th Century temperature change. He has a New Scientist article headlined Professional climate change deniers’ crusade continues. Although focussed on the legal challenges brought by Virginia state Attorney General Cuccinelli, his final sentence reads “While professional climate change deniers continue their crusade against climate science, this year is likely to go down as either the warmest or the second warmest on record.” There seems little chance of any meeting of minds with people such as this.
The argument from people at this end of the spectrum is not only that the ‘disinformation’ campaign has reduced politicians’ willingness to act, but that ‘climategate’ played a significant role in derailing last year’s Copenhagen climate summit. More open-minded observers would say that the likelihood of a binding post-Kyoto agreement emerging were slim at best.
The question is whether the breaking of ranks within the climate change establishment is one of the first signs of the return of objectivity and a true scientific debate, or whether the wagons will be circled by the diehards and the war of attrition continued. The best hope is for the extremists of all colours to be marginalised. I’m not holding my breath just yet, but there are certainly signs of movement in the right direction.
The Scientific Alliance
Dr. Martin Hertzberg
For your interest is the e-mail I just sent to Rachel’s MSNBC show. No doubt, it will be ignored, but I have done my civic duty.
Marty
From: ruthhertzberg@msn.com
To: rachel@msnbc.com
Sent: Wednesday, November 10, 2010 9:08 AM
Subject: The “climategate” investigations
Dear Rachel:
Your reference last night to the investigations that “cleared” those involved in the climategate scandal ignores the fact that those investigations were complete “whitewashes” conducted by those same institutions who profited from the research contracts that the climategate scientists brought to their institutions. Those involved in the Parliamentary inquiry into the matter were similarly steeped in conflicts of interest. Those investigations are about as credible as a BP investigation of its explosion and oil spill in the Gulf.
I have studied the theory that human emission of CO2 is causing “global warming/climate change” for years, and the overwhelming evidence proves rather convincingly that the theory is completely false. Although I am a lifelong liberal Democrat, if the Republicans actually hold hearings on the issue, I would feel that it is my public duty to testify at such hearings and summarize the wealth of data available that proves the falsity of that theory.
But if the Republicans actually hold such hearings, they would be making fools of themselves because they would be “beating a dead horse”.
You, on the other hand, are making a bigger fool of yourself, by trying to prop up the dead horse on its four legs so that you can ride it!
Please, both of you, do the public a great favor and arrange for its decent burial.
Sincerely,
Dr. Martin Hertzberg
By Anne Jolis, WSJ Politcal Diary
The American Geophysical Union is set to launch a media-outreach service ahead of the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Mexico, which begins at the end of this month. The Union said in a press release on Monday that the service aims “to provide accurate scientific information for journalists” on climate change. But can accuracy be possible if the views of notable scientists in the field aren’t included?
AGU spokesman Peter Weiss told us on Monday that the Union has asked all its members with Ph.Ds in climate-related fields to answer journalists’ questions about global warming, and that hundreds have agreed to volunteer.
But as the email leaks known as “climategate” revealed last year, what constitutes “accurate scientific information” about climate change is anything but settled.
Several established scientists, including Richard Lindzen of MIT, Science and Environmental Policy Project President Fred Singer, and John Christy at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, disagree with the well-publicized hypothesis that man is causing catastrophic warming.
These scientists are all Union members whose fields are explicitly “climate-related.” And all three told us they do not recall being approached to participate in the AGU’s media initiative. Mr. Weiss stressed to us that “AGU hasn’t selectively encouraged anyone to participate nor discouraged anyone from participating,” and that “all members of AGU sections and focus groups relating to climate science were informed of the service by their section and focus group leaders.”
He added that the Union’s service was also publicized in its weekly newsletter.
Lapsed Union-member Willie Soon of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, whose work suggests that solar variability is the greatest factor affecting the climate, says he tried to sign up for the AGU’s media service last year when he was still a member, but that the “AGU rejected my participation.”